Help, I've got a tapeworm and it's messing with my head

[Invasionofthegutsnatchers]

I've had stomach ache for a few weeks. Phoned GP, submitted stool sample. Results not back yet. Gripey pain, back pain, feel tired. GP said probably gastritis or h.pylori infection.

This morning I passed a worm 🪱 about 5cm long 😱😱😱 it was dead. Looked a bit like tagliatelle but thinner.

I'm so disgusted, I wash my hands really regularly. Horrified, vaguely amused, stomach feels like it's being eaten from the inside out and now I know why! Dear Lord.

I will phone GP again on Monday to request prescription for tablets to kill it. Until then I KNOW IT IS THERE and it's so disturbing 🤯

Are you definitely sure it was a worm?
My DH called me other week to the bathroom almost crying and fully panicked that he passed a vein form his bum ( has a fissure issues long term)
However after close look 👀 it was long vegetable piece from Chinese dinner he had the day earlier!

It's just nature, I'd think differently if it was spiders though but maybe just tell yourself that to stop freaking out.

Do you get your pets wormed and de-flead regularly because they can pass this stuff on?

I got scabies once, it was bloody awful.

And to add it was apprx 5 cm long ..

When I was a child I remember our cat walking into the room with what looked like a flat piece of pasta sticking out of her bum. When I looked closer it wriggled.

My mum dealt with it - I'm not sure how as I'd run out the room screaming at the time. 😂

Seriously though OP I'd phone 111 and ask for advice. I'm sure there's a medicine that can sort it out pretty quickly.

Are they any good for weight loss? Asking for a friend.....

I came here thinking it was a Sean Lock appreciation thread

I’m very disappointed

@Invasionofthegutsnatchers

I do eat pork but don't remember having any that was undercooked. DH does the cooking on the whole. Suppose it could have been slightly underdone.

It's also present in undercooked beef, in fact deliberately eating beef tapeworm cysts was a Victorian slimming fad that supposedly persisted into the 20th century.

Poor OP, I feel for you! I think I'd have fainted at the sight of that.

You can certainly Google images to check what you saw.

Be careful to get treatment ASAP -- ringing 111 is a good start. Without wishing to alarm you, if this is invasive (hopefully unlikely) it can cause serious trouble.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taenia_saginata

Fair play to you OP for taking some of the grim posts with such good humour.
I hope you get it sorted quickly.

Hullo! It's definitely not a tapeworm. I used to live in a particular African country where they were a problem. Friend’s used to compare the lengths of theirs and it was quite the effort to poo them our intact. They're segmented and can get extremely large.

Yours looks like a roundworm (as others have said). Ovex will probably do it.

(OMG nightmare though)

In the olden days they used to eat the eggs for weight loss

OMG I remember that disgusting raspberry medicine. It really was vile and is one of my worst childhood memories. Yuk🤮

On the up side, there are lots of studies that show helminths (or as I call them, evil wiggly bum invaders) can stimulate the immune system in such a way to help prevent allergy responses.

I have a daughter allergic to lots of things including the sun… this is but one rabbit hole I have scurried down in the dead of night looking for help lol.

Utterly unscientific note: when she was at private & school nursery, she had threadworms on several occasions, and this was the period of life when her skin was bloody lovely!

Not that I’d infect her with worms of any kind, even the threadworm incidents made me boak!

@Invasionofthegutsnatchers

It was cream in colour?, thin and like tagliatelle I guess, with a weird horseshoe shape at one end. 5cm long. Not moving.

Sounds very like my bean sprout

When I lived in Africa it was a normal day to day risk that you could get various worms including tapeworm. It was easily treated using a broad spectrum wormer which was a single tablet. I'm sure your GP will sort it quickly.

It's comforting to know I'm not the only one with childhood trauma from Pripsen.

@Curioushorse

Hullo! It's definitely not a tapeworm. I used to live in a particular African country where they were a problem. Friend’s used to compare the lengths of theirs and it was quite the effort to poo them our intact. They're segmented and can get extremely large.

Yours looks like a roundworm (as others have said). Ovex will probably do it.

(OMG nightmare though)

Can you see a pic? I can’t!

Tapeworms from pork are very unlikely in the UK as all pork is inspected for tapeworm at the abbetoir.

Tape worms look like 'segments' if some breaks off and you pass it. Think of a few pieces of ravioli joined together.

Ah, yes, those heady days before he found the TV Doctors' holy grail - a new way of tapping into the Diet Industry

Yes, see also TV Doctors who did their a medical degree after a tour in banking, then immediately on graduating went to work for the BBC without ever practising and who are not registered as doctors but that title certainly helps if making pop science programmes about the fad of the day.

@BlueThursday

I came here thinking it was a Sean Lock appreciation thread

I’m very disappointed

Awwww, RIP Sean….. (Goes off humming ‘You can only get a tapeworm from some pork OI OI!’……)

I passed something similar and took it to the doctors and they said it wasn’t a worm it was intestinal lining or something. It was years ago so I don’t really remember but I remember it 100% looked like a worm and I’d have phantom feelings of worms escaping for ages

Obviously placemarking. Thinking of you.

My sister had a tapeworm infection. She got it from travelling around Asia. She had to get specialist treatment at the hospital for tropical diseases in London. The treatment for tapeworm is a bit more complicated than roundworm and OTC deworming medicines don’t work. You need to see your GP.

Also.. if it is tapeworm, that 5cm ‘worm’ would probably just be a small piece of it. There’s probably a whole lot more of it still inside you. If you’ve ever travelled to a country where hygiene isn’t great, you could’ve picked it up there. Even if it was years ago. Tapeworms can go undetected for a long time.

Another with Pripsen trauma. I have never forgotten it, it was beyond horrific.

@Invasionofthegutsnatchers

If you found a worm in your poo would you wash it and photograph it or would you screech and flush it? 😳

Yes I flushed it. Maybe more will appear. If they do I will photograph it

I'd have taken a photo. Maybe fished it out 😊

Some people pay money to get tapeworm to lose weight. I seriously considered it once when I read an article in a teen mag about someone who had done it 🤣

I bet its some sort of food. If your stomach hasn't been great lately then its probably not digesting the food very well.
Am I the only one wondering though, how intestinal tapeworm gets into the actual meat??